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steveniskewl444 · 2 years

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yo yo this is my first post on the hellsite. so hello hi, my name is Steve (you can call me Steven tho), I am 18 (bodily 17), my pronouns are he/him (I’d prefer you just use my name, sometimes I just don’t feel like pronounce), I am arospec and homosexual with an exclusive attraction to men — based on their gender ofc, don’t care abt your down there — and enbies who are man-aligned or whatever. i don’t feel too much romantic fluff and am not into it, but i’m still positive about romance overall.

here are some of my stances, takes, some stuff abt me in general idk, to help you out in (not) interacting with this blog muahaha:

gays should have the exact amount of rights as straights, but preferably we should be liberated from shitty heternormative society

i hate cancel culture, but i love people being taken accountable. don’t police others for liking a “problematic” person, just point out if they’re a dick sucker.

i hate terminally online shit so much pls don’t bring your terminally online bullshit on this blog. YOU WILL BE IGNORED AND/OR BLOCKED.

people whose sexual action is being into children or into animals shouldn’t be here. you all make me throw up.

don’t come here if you unironically say “slayyyy” or “you ate 🤪” or any other white queer appropriation of AAVE every 5 seconds. you can say “slay” or any other AAVE phrase, but if your skin looks like milk and not like espresso coffee, then you’re on thin ice.

people who are like “umm bi lesbeans aren’t real 🥺🥺🥺” who gives a shit who gives a shit WHO GIVES A SHIT??? don’t come here if you’re like that.

people who are against the ocean turian/uranian flag (don’t care + didn’t ask + white + L + ratio) shouldn’t come here at all. i could give less of a fuck. uranians be damned, THE FACT WE HAVE FLAGS OF OUR OWN IS ENOUGH. SHUT UP ALREADY AND ADMIT THAT ENBIES CAN LIKE BLUE TOO, WHY DO YOU GENDER COLORS? or “nooo they stole it from lesbans 🥺🥺🥺” WHO GIVES A FUCK ?????!!!!??? ITS FINE TO TAKE INSPIRATION Y’ALL + THE POINT IS THAT THEY MATCH YOU BITCHES

i am, generally speaking, a leftist. I appreciate this whole idea of workers owning the means of production but not only. I also appreciate this one thing, it begins with an A, arachnids or something, idk. oh, anarchy!! that one!!! yeah, if you’re a hardcore ML, maybe this isn’t the place for you.

I am Christian so please don’t disrespect my religion. I am not practicing but I still believe in my Lord Jesus Christ, for only He can save me from this hellhole. i think he’s fine with homosexuals too, the Bible generally condemned pederasty (the totally not MAP act of older men having sex with younger twinks during the Ancient era, which ofc is a stupid as fuck practice!!!), NOT HOMOSEXUAL BEHAVIOR BETWEEN TWO CONSENTING ADULTS HOLY FUCK !!!! Plus if y’all don’t allow us to marry, am I supposed to forever not fuck a man?!?? (no sex before marriage y’all!!)

if you’re younger than, idk, the age of consent in most European countries, you shouldn’t be on this blog. I may post some… slightly NSFW stuff from time to time. (NOT an NSFW blog tho!!!!)

anyone who says “fiction doesn’t affect reality 🤓” or “fiction doesn’t affect reality 1:1 🤓” is a mindless zombie who can’t be critical of what they consume and tolerate the fucked up portrayal of… MAP behavior, of Catholic priest behavior, ya know, in a “haha this is good quirky soooo romantic woowww 🤪🤪🤪” way, and you shouldn’t even look at me in the eyes. yes, you know yourselves.

I LOVE MUSCULAR MEN!!!! I LOVE JACKED UP MEN WHO ARE MASCULINE JUST LIKE I AM!!!! I LOVE MEN WHOSE MUSCLES ARE HUGE!!!! I LOVE FIT MEN!!!! MEENNNNNNNNN!!!!!!

I love a bit of footy, a bit of pop music (ya know, Katy Perry, Taylor Swift, Lady Gaga, that shit slaps and is not for effeminate twinks or white valley girls only), I love Kumalala especially, I uhh love linguistics, I love many things… except for love itself 😌.

Anyhow ahoy, i hope y’all will… tolerate me i guess. host calls me “problematic” and has beef with me, tell @anarchobasil they’re wrong whenever they shit talk abt me pls. When I say “probelmatic” stuff I am ironic 99.9% of the time. I am a very huge ally for everyone, don’t care. and uhhh that’s it????

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whitehotharlots · 3 years

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The point is control

Whenever we think or talk about censorship, we usually conceptualize it as certain types of speech being somehow disallowed: maybe (rarely) it's made formally illegal by the government, maybe it's banned in certain venues, maybe the FCC will fine you if you broadcast it, maybe your boss will fire you if she learns of it, maybe your friends will stop talking to you if they see what you've written, etc. etc.

This understanding engenders a lot of mostly worthless discussion precisely because it's so broad. Pedants--usually arguing in favor of banning a certain work or idea--will often argue that speech protections only apply to direct, government bans. These bans, when they exist, are fairly narrow and apply only to those rare speech acts in which other people are put in danger by speech (yelling the N-word in a crowded theater, for example). This pedantry isn't correct even within its own terms, however, because plenty of people get in trouble for making threats. The FBI has an entire entrapment program dedicated to getting mentally ill muslims and rednecks to post stuff like "Death 2 the Super bowl!!" on twitter, arresting them, and the doing a press conference about how they heroically saved the world from terrorism.

Another, more recent pedant's trend is claiming that, actually, you do have freedom of speech; you just don't have freedom from the consequences of speech. This logic is eerily dictatorial and ignores the entire purpose of speech protections. Like, even in the history's most repressive regimes, people still technically had freedom of speech but not from consequences. Those leftist kids who the nazis beheaded for speaking out against the war were, by this logic, merely being held accountable.

The two conceptualizations of censorship I described above are, 99% of the time, deployed by people who are arguing in favor of a certain act of censorship but trying to exempt themselves from the moral implications of doing so. Censorship is rad when they get to do it, but they realize such a solipsism seems kinda icky so they need to explain how, actually, they're not censoring anybody, what they're doing is an act of righteous silencing that's a totally different matter. Maybe they associate censorship with groups they don't like, such as nazis or religious zealots. Maybe they have a vague dedication toward Enlightenment principles and don't want to be regarded as incurious dullards. Most typically, they're just afraid of the axe slicing both ways, and they want to make sure that the precedent they're establishing for others will not be applied to themselves.

Anyone who engages with this honestly for more than a few minutes will realize that censorship is much more complicated, especially in regards to its informal and social dimensions. We can all agree that society simply would not function if everyone said whatever they wanted, whenever they wanted. You might think your boss is a moron or your wife's dress doesn't look flattering, but you realize that such tidbits are probably best kept to yourself.

Again, this is a two-way proposition that everyone is seeking to balance. Do you really want people to verbalize every time they dislike or disagree with you? I sure as hell don't. And so, as part of a social compact, we learn to self-censor. Sometimes this is to the detriment of ourselves and our communities. Most often, however, it's just a price we have to pay in order to keep things from collapsing.

But as systems, large and small, grow increasingly more insane and untenable, so do the comportment standards of speech. The disconnect between America's reality and the image Americans have of themselves has never been more plainly obvious, and so striving for situational equanimity is no longer good enough. We can't just pretend cops aren't racist and the economy isn't run by venal retards or that the government places any value on the life of its citizens. There's too much evidence that contradicts all that, and the evidence is too omnipresent. There's too many damn internet videos, and only so many of them can be cast as Russian disinformation. So, sadly, we must abandon our old ways of communicating and embrace instead systems that are even more unstable, repressive, and insane than the ones that were previously in place.

Until very, very recently, nuance and big-picture, balanced thinking were considered signs of seriousness, if not intelligence. Such considerations were always exploited by shitheads to obfuscate things that otherwise would have seemed much less ambiguous, yes, but this fact alone does not mitigate the potential value of such an approach to understanding the world--especially since the stuff that's been offered up to replace it is, by every worthwhile metric, even worse.

So let's not pretend I'm Malcolm Gladwell or some similarly slimy asshole seeking to "both sides" a clearcut moral issue. Let's pretend I am me. Flash back to about a year ago, when there was real, widespread, and sustained support for police reform. Remember that? Seems like forever ago, man, but it was just last year... anyhow, now, remember what happened? Direct, issues-focused attempts to reform policing were knocked down. Blotted out. Instead, we were told two things: 1) we had to repeat the slogan ABOLISH THE POLICE, and 2) we had to say it was actually very good and beautiful and nonviolent and valid when rioters burned down poor neighborhoods.

Now, in a relatively healthy discourse, it might have been possible for someone to say something like "while I agree that American policing is heavily violent and racist and requires substantial reforms, I worry that taking such an absolutist point of demanding abolition and cheering on the destruction of city blocks will be a political non-starter." This statement would have been, in retrospect, 100000000% correct. But could you have said it, in any worthwhile manner? If you had said something along those lines, what would the fallout had been? Would you have lost friends? Your job? Would you have suffered something more minor, like getting yelled at, told your opinion did not matter? Would your acquaintances still now--a year later, after their political project has failed beyond all dispute--would they still defame you in "whisper networks," never quite articulating your verbal sins but nonetheless informing others that you are a dangerous and bad person because one time you tried to tell them how utterly fucking self-destructive they were being? It is undeniably clear that last year's most-elevated voices were demanding not reform but catharsis. I hope they really had fun watching those immigrant-owned bodegas burn down, because that’s it, that will forever be remembered as the most palpable and consequential aspect of their shitty, selfish movement. We ain't reforming shit. Instead, we gave everyone who's already in power a blank check to fortify that power to a degree you and I cannot fully fathom.

But, oh, these people knew what they were doing. They were good little boys and girls. They have been rewarded with near-total control of the national discourse, and they are all either too guilt-ridden or too stupid to realize how badly they played into the hands of the structures they were supposedly trying to upend.

And so left-liberalism is now controlled by people whose worldview is equal parts superficial and incoherent. This was the only possible outcome that would have let the system continue to sustain itself in light of such immense evidence of its unsustainability without resulting in reform, so that's what has happened.

But... okay, let's take a step back. Let's focus on what I wanted to talk about when I started this.

I came across a post today from a young man who claimed that his high school English department head had been removed from his position and had his tenure revoked for refusing to remove three books from classrooms. This was, of course, fallout from the ongoing debate about Critical Race Theory. Two of those books were Marjane Satropi's Persepolis and, oh boy, The Diary of Anne Frank. Fuck. Jesus christ, fuck.

Now, here's the thing... When Persepolis was named, I assumed the bannors were anti-CRT. The graphic novel does not deal with racism all that much, at least not as its discussed contemporarily, but it centers an Iranian girl protagonist and maybe that upset Republican types. But Anne Frank? I'm sorry, but the most likely censors there are liberal identiarians who believe that teaching her diary amounts to centering the suffering of a white woman instead of talking about the One Real Racism, which must always be understood in an American context. The super woke cult group Black Hammer made waves recently with their #FuckAnneFrank campaign... you'd be hard pressed to find anyone associated with the GOP taking a firm stance against the diary since, oh, about 1975 or so.

So which side was it? That doesn't matter. What matters is, I cannot find out.

Now, pro-CRT people always accuse anti-CRT people of not knowing what CRT is, and then after making such accusations they always define CRT in a way that absolutely is not what CRT is. Pro-CRTers default to "they don't want students to read about slavery or racism." This is absolutely not true, and absolutely not what actual CRT concerns itself with. Slavery and racism have been mainstays of American history curriucla since before I was born. Even people who barely paid attention in school would admit this, if there were any more desire for honesty in our discourse.

My high school history teacher was a southern "lost causer" who took the south's side in the Civil War but nonetheless provided us with the most descriptive and unapologetic understandings of slavery's brutalities I had heard up until that point. He also unambiguously referred to the nuclear attacks on Hiroshmia and Nagasaki as "genocidal." Why? Because most people's politics are idiosyncratic, and because you cannot genuinely infer a person to believe one thing based on their opinion of another, tangentially related thing. The totality of human understanding used to be something open-minded people prided themselves on being aware of, believe it or not...

This is the problem with CRT. This is is the motivation behind the majority of people who wish to ban it. It’s not because they are necessarily racist themselves. It’s because they recognize, correctly, that the now-ascendant frames for understanding social issues boils everything down to a superficial patina that denies not only the realities of the systems they seek to upend but the very humanity of the people who exist within them. There is no humanity without depth and nuance and complexities and contradictions. When you argue otherwise, people will get mad and fight back.

And this is the most bitter irony of this idiotic debate: it was never about not wanting to teach the sinful or embarrassing parts of our history. That was a different debate, one that was settled and won long ago. It is instead an immense, embarrassing overreach on behalf of people who have bullied their way to complete dominance of their spheres of influence within media and academe assuming they could do the same to everyone else. Some of its purveyors may have convinced themselves that getting students to admit complicity in privilege will prevent police shootings, sure. But I know these people. I’ve spoken to them at length. I’ve read their work. The vast, vast majority of them aren’t that stupid. The point is to exert control. The point is to make sure they stay in charge and that nothing changes. The point is failure.

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brazenautomaton · 3 years

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Heart breaking to see that post where you articulate pretty well why people react to the democrates the why they do and then effectively see them descend into overly elaborate "No, no. It's everyone else that is wrong. Not the party"

the people saying that aren’t even democrats but there’s this super frustrating thing where these people are simultaneously democrats and not democrats, because the democrats don’t support actual leftist positions, but also are the only leftist ones

I remember a frustrating discussion I got into about how people thought Rush Limbaugh and the right-wing media were responsible for them losing elections, and every time I said “liberals dominated damn near every minute of media output before Rush, so if being exposed to a few hours of a guy who isn’t in your corner talking brainwashes people it means you’re doing an astonishingly shitty job of conveying your message” I was met with “no, we’re Real True Leftists, the media has never been sympathetic to our message” and when I said “okay so then the problem is that you expect to challenge an entrenched system of power and are just aghast when that system resists in any way, including by telling people not to believe you, and Limbaugh didn’t represent a change in any of this, because the liberal media was also hostile to you” I was met with “But we can’t be expected to know how to counter Rush and the conservative media he created because he brainwashes everyone into hating liberals!” and then repeat

it’s crazy how politically entitled the left and/or the Real True Left is, they think it’s the responsibility of other people to be convinced instead of their responsibility to convince other people, and they’re perpetually aghast that other political ideologies try to convince people to not agree with the left, like it’s unprecedented that their opposition would try and oppose them

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andersfels · 4 years

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I'm just gonna say. even tho I'm white, seeing other white activists that don't centralize race in their activism makes me deeply uncomfortable. i can't trust them.

it's just that race is such a deeply rooted issue that all other issues are tied up in....and you literally cannot approach anything, not sexism, not homophobia or transphobia, not ableism, not class, not any leftist politics, without discussing "how does this affect people of color? how are their experiences different from mine? how do my approaches affect them? is it different than how it affects white people? are there other layers of oppression here to fight that i am unfamilar with?"

and the thing is....i never see white activists addressing this stuff. i never see them boosting voices of poc, i never see them talking about the nuances of experiences of poc, and most damning of all, i never see discussions of how their approach to activism and politics may affect poc differently.

and to me, that radiates a mentality of self centeredness. activism centered around personal benefit - e.g. white women who are feminists because of how they experience sexism, not because of the sexism all women experience, or people who lean left because they personally suffer from capitalism, not because there are so many poor people suffering under it.

and that's not activism to me. that's not trustworthy. that's the behavior of people who will join the oppressors as soon as they get a taste of privelege.

and it's not that they're overtly racist or anything - in fact a lot of them may actually be involved in racial equality activism. but the refusal to realize how the voices of poc need to be centralized and paid attention to in areas outside of racial specific activism says to me that it's activism for show, or it's shallow activism and they haven't really thought through about what poc face. that they don't really care.

how can you participate in real activism if you can't acknowledge the systems in place, and the fact that the deep roots of these systems rely on racial prejudice? the fact that black and native and indiginous and aboriginal women face multiple times the threat of danger and abuse and murder than white women? that the trans stats trans activists like to wave around are almost entirely black trans women's statistics? that the control of "women's bodies" (not my wording,) also has roots in eugenics and genocide, and woc face different forms of it than white women? that class issues are heavily rooted in segregation and that poc are purposefully kept poorer on a more massive scale? that the threat disabled/mentally ill/neurodivergent people face from cops is multiple times more likely and lethal for poc?

and if your approach to "leftist" politics, be it democrat, liberalism, communism, anarchy, or general anti-capitalism, etc. if that doesn't first and foremost address how to deal with the specifically racist roots the current oppressive systems have, if your politics don't have a plan for dealing with them, if you methods don't account for the effects they will have on poc, not only are they not real acticism, they also aren't really leftist.

self centered activism isn't real activism. looking to boost yourself into a better position isn't activism. if you aren't specifically looking to better the lives of everyone oppression touches, if you don't seek to destroy the systems that uphold that oppression, you aren't doing anything good.

and the place to start with any of that is by prioritizing the voices and care of poc.

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miseriathome · 4 years

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Continuation of the previous post

ARRRRUGH like they legit just keep posting photos they’ve discreetly taken of him to be like “he’s showing up again! :o” but like. YOU KNOW YOU COULD JUST FUCKING TALK TO HIM, RIGHT? ALL THIS SPECULATION ABOUT WHETHER HE’S SECRETLY A WHITE SUPREMACIST DOESN’T HAVE TO BE SPECULATION. Like fucking hell when I realized that homeless people are actually just people, I made more of an effort to talk to them, and it’s improved my experience being in cities, even if whatever liberal friends I’m with always admonish me for it. When I realized that folks with criminal records can actually be okay people, I started checking my biases about crime and criminality and reform. Like I’m legit just going to have to track down this guy and talk to him my damn self, aren’t I? Because as much as the white allies want to talk big about how good they are, they still segregate themselves away from the black protesters in the crowd and they still keep pulling all this vigilante crap. They keep turning to the “community policing” tactic of bombarding the employers of people they don’t like until they get fired, and they celebrate about how much of a good thing it is to be able to get people fired over facebook dogwhistles! Which is actually very bad and bites marginalized people and radical activists in the ass all the fucking time and doesn’t do anything to build community or reform people!! The real spirit of prison abolition is to get in touch with people close to the problematic person and work with them to stage an intervention or some shit to get them support or deradicalize them or whatever the fuck, not appeal to their fucking boss and disrupt their income. Like you realize bosses are fucked up too, right?? Fucking hell, I can’t fucking stand how much this damn group embodies the spirit of “I want to dismantle the police so I can be the new police,” including the ones who claim they’re for total abolishment, not just defunding. Everybody wants a system that works and is kind to people, but nobody wants to do any of the legwork themselves to accept moral ambiguity or even, god forbid, reach out to ~scary~ people.

I’m not by any means a community leader or a seasoned protester or particularly good at any praxis activism, I’m just cursed with fucking theory brain, but even I have done tangible work to increase my tolerance for people I have a learned negative association towards. I guess that makes me fucking wooby instead of a real hardcore leftist, who would never rationalize justifications for how some people can find conservatism or paramilitarism appealing. Bad class traitor me, for living the kind of life that puts me in contact with ignorant people and then using my proximity to them to challenge their worldviews and teach them compassion. Bad class traitor me for understanding how violent and sexual convictions irreparably fuck peoples’ lives up and wanting to voice my discomfort being around “allies” who believe that is just. I am anti-feminist because I think “female-identified people” shouldn’t have an inherent right to know all the gory details about the worst thing somebody’s ever done, which they’ve already served time for and are clearly trying to reform from, never mind the fact that I too am in the class of people who would supposedly benefit from being aware of potential assaulters (and that I personally am also keenly aware of how bogus that activism is, on multiple levels which have affected me and people close to me).

#1 #2 #3 #4 #5 #personal #pls no rebagel #ugh allies

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vorpalgatorade · 4 years

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I’m sick and tired of the hate Trevor Noah gets for not being Jon Stewart

There’s a variety of versions of intent behind these words. First, of course, they��re always coming from people who think their stanky opinions matter- and I make no mistake about my own, but at least come up with something original, damn! How long has Jon Stewart been off the air? Shut the fuck up about it already, jeez. Nobody is forcing you to like his style or sense of humor. And I can’t prove you just don’t like him because he’s black, but you definitely get a whiff of that vibe from some people- But others, assuming their not racist, seem to hold Jon in this holy regard. Was/is he quite an amazing mind and person? Yes. Can we get over the fact that people usually don’t want to do TV shows until they’re 80 years old? Most viewers of media fail to realize the real work that goes into making their entertainment and simply want more, more, more. I get that. I sit here in my privileged world with an unending supply of fresh and vintage vibes. Trevor Noah’s got his own story, his own mind, he grew up in South Africa during the transition between apartheid to democracy. The material conditions and effect of racism of his life and perspective are mindblowing compared to anything white people can understand without actively learning about. But that’s digging in a little too deep with the “Why make everything about race” crowd- we know the biggest reason. The D-man. Trump came, Jon left, and all those Trump supporters who LOVED the Daily Show (even though it was always liberal (even perhaps a smidge leftist) and went against the Tucker Carlson-douchebag conservatives of yesterday who’ve stagnated for decades.)

I think what they fail to realize Jon Stewart would 100% have been speaking truth to power and criticize Donald Trump’s constant embarrassing qualities just like anyone else. The material is endless! Even if half the scandals were literally fake news, half of them aren’t. Jon’s game was always speaking up for the truth and calling out people who were shitty, just Trevor Noah does today, albeit with different values and jokes. If you’d like to learn more about South Africa in the 80s/90s and Trevor’s lived experience in it, check out Born a Crime, an autobiography that may broaden the horizons of anyone with an American perspective- and I think, too, that it’s been written specifically with an American audience in mind, he never takes it for granted that we need a lot of context to understand what was going on in his life in South Africa. Cheers!

#trevor noah #the daily show #born a crime #donald trump #criticism

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theheavymetalmama · 6 years

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Katie Reviews “Far Cry 5″

Doctor Stupidlove

Another day, another Far Cry game. Whether or not that’s a good or bad thing depends on person to person with a laundry list of variables, including but not limited to personal taste and sensibilities, franchise fatigue, whether or not you bought into the glue-huffing guff that this game held a leftist bias pushing an anti-white, anti-American agenda because for the first time in the series the bad guys are an American fanatically religious death cult instead of brown people from imaginary foreign countries, and a myriad of other things I’m probably missing. I’ll say up front that after Primal and a bunch of other bullshit from Ubisoft between now and the infamous ‘women are too hard to animate’ thing I was pretty much done with the series and Ubisoft as a whole. Then the launch trailer for Far Cry 5 dropped and, having grown up in a dead gold mining community chock-full of racist loonies not unlike the one depicted in the fictional Hope County, my interest immediately peaked.

See, the Far Cry games have a strange pattern to them. No game is perfect, but the Far Cry games stand out in that they have one glaring flaw that mars an otherwise damn good game. Far Cry 3 is held aloft as when the series peaked, and for good reason, but the main character was irredeemably unlikable and the main charismatic villain just up and vanishes from the halfway point in the game. Far Cry 4, or Far Cry 3 2 as some call it, fixed the villain problem but the main character was just dull. Primal was...not good, with a boring lead, a boring villain, and an overall boring game. Sure, Blood Dragon was a ton of fun, but part of the charm was that it was completely self-aware of its’ own absurdity and the characters from the hero to the villain weren’t characters so much as they were walking punchlines.

So how does Far Cry 5 compare? Well, when it comes to story, setting, and gameplay, it’s a step up from Far Cry 4 in some ways, blows Primal out of the water, but has its’ own issues and hang-ups that don’t quite make it live up to Far Cry 3. That’s the short version, anyway. The long version?

Let’s start with graphics, location, and aesthetics. Far Cry 5 looks fucking beautiful.

I’m not kidding, everything from the wild lands, the forests, the mountains, the lakes and rivers, the settlements, everything in Far Cry 5 is absolutely gorgeous. It’s not quite up there with Breath of the Wild or Horizon: Zero Dawn in sheer style and detail, but it’s pretty damn close. More often than not I found myself forgetting about the mission and spending a lot of time exploring, hunting, and trying to take in the sights. More on the ‘trying’ part in a bit. The atmosphere sucks you right in, everything from the chirping birds and buzzing bees making the world feel alive. Exploring the woods and hearing cultist singing and chanting far off in the distance, especially at night, is legitimately terrifying. Wildlife always plays a key role in the Far Cry games and this is no exception, from docile deer to the always pleasant wolverine providing plenty of opportunities for hunting. Just don’t get skunked.

The game takes place in Hope County, a fictional region in rural Montana. Now I’ve never actually been to Montana, but I did grow up in Washington state and I can’t help but notice many similarities. The woods, the rivers, the god damned apple farms, exploring Hope County felt like I was going home again. Sometimes not for the better, but that’s neither here nor there. In any case, Hope County is beautifully detailed, from the farms to forest to the interiors of the (ugh...) Spread Eagle bar to the small hunting cabins out in the woods. Hats off to the artists and environmental designers for Far Cry 5, because they manage to tell more story about the world and characters with just a ransacked pumpkin farm and a dog mourning his dead owners than Square Enix and Konami ever could with a 20 minute cutscene and a dictionary’s worth of dialogue for each character.

Speaking of characters, the Far Cry games are loaded with memorable characters and the locals of Hope County are no exception. Returning character Hurk is back and as redneck-y as ever, and it turns out Hope County is his home. We also meet members of his family, like his pyromaniac cousin Sharky, his promiscuous mother Adelaide and her boyfriend Xander who’s roughly 1/3rd her age, and his racist conspiracy theorist gun-hoarding father Hurk Sr. No wonder he’s so messed up.

But Hurk and his folks aren’t the only people you meet, as the game is packed to the brim with memorable characters that you either love or love to hate, from lovable country boy Nick Rye and half-feral huntress Jess Black to the cartoonishly evil Seed family. More on them in a minute. Oh, and you get a pet bear named Cheeseburger.

Combat and gunplay is as tight as ever, and vehicle control is so smooth it gives Grand Theft Auto a run for its’ money. The soundtrack is pretty damn good, featuring a good mix of licensed and original music and songs. To the surprise of nobody my favorite is the one that plays during the stunt missions.

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Leveling and character progress has been streamlined a bit. You upgrade your skills not by gaining experience, but by completing in-game challenges and finding ‘perk magazines’ that, you guessed it, give you points to unlock...well, perks. Some may not like that, but in my opinion it makes sense because if you gained experience just by killing stuff you’d reach level 50 before your first boss fight. Things like bigger ammo bags and extra weapon holsters are no longer unlocked by animal skins but through perks, and said said skins are now exclusively a form of making money.

So that about covers it for the good, and now it’s time for the bad. The streamlining I just brought up both helps and hurts the game. On one hand it does make progressing a lot less tedious, but on the other hand it does take away a lot of what makes Far Cry stand out from other typical shooters. It feels less like they were trimming the fat and more like they were cutting corners. For starters, areas that contain loot only contain ammo, crafting components, and sometimes money. There’s no more animations for skinning animals, harvesting plants, looting corpses, or even your character opening doors. That’s not so bad, but I really miss how dynamic and, as much as I’ve grown to detest this word, cinematic meeting new characters in previous games were. Take a look at this scene in Far Cry 4 when you meet Longinus, easily one of the highlights of the game.

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And here’s what happens when you meet Sharky in Far Cry 5. (MINOR SPOILERS)

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See the difference? Now one can argue that meeting new characters in real time saves some...well, time and is considerably less pretentious, but it just isn’t as interesting. Far Cry 5 still has plenty of scripted cutscenes, but again, they’ve been stripped down to the bone.

Now remember what I said earlier about trying to take in the sights? This game is packed to the fucking gills with enemy NPCs. Now previous Far Cry games had plenty of enemies as well but this went way overboard to the point that you can’t walk or drive 50 feet before running into a convoy or roadblock or whatever. I speak no hyberbole when I say that by the time you’ve liberated your first region, you’ll have killed more cultists than there are people currently living in real-life Montana as well as hunted and skinned more wolves, cougars, and bears than there are wolves, cougars, and bears currently populating the US west coast. Also, in what universe can a fucking turkey pose a legitimate threat to humans!? Does Far Cry occupy the same universe as fucking South Park?

The story of Far Cry 5 is pretty straight forward, but it definitely feels like there’s some pretty big pieces missing from it. This isn’t just me, critics and players across the board agree that it feels like something was cut from the game at the last minute. This is especially true for the endings, but more on that in a bit. I can’t help but feel that the writers and developers had a lot more to say about racism, gender roles and the enforcement thereof, gun violence and gun culture in America, sexism, religious zealotry, far-right extremism, and of course this tire fire of a presidential administration, because the pieces for all of that are still there. A handful of NPCs mention gender roles for a hot second, several of the guns for hire make disparaging remarks about Trump, the symbol of Eden’s Gate strongly resembles the same symbol the Ku Klux Klan and other white supremacist groups use, Hurk’s dad is a caricature of far-right ideals purposefully exaggerated for ridicule and contempt, and there’s even a mission where you meet up with another returning character to find Trump’s pee-tape.

All of the elements are there, but the game says almost nothing about any of it. Why?

When the first trailer for the game dropped it was around the same time Wolfenstein II: the New Colossus was close to release and the same mouth-breathing shitheels who screamed about how killing Nazis in Wolfenstein was pushing an anti-white, anti-conservative agenda did the same thing for Far Cry 5. My guess is that the PR guys at Ubisoft saw the oxygen-thieving wastes of space screaming about how the game was “anti-white SJW propaganda” and then panicked and removed huge chunks of the game so as not to alienate any racist shitheads who may want to buy it. Not only does the game say almost nothing about any of the themes and elements that I mentioned earlier, but the cult of Eden’s Gate is multi-racial and gendered where most of the guys have long hair and hipster beards and all the women barring Faith Seed have short hair and buzz cuts. It’s really jarring and feels like something that was added at the last minute, as the male cultists all sound the same and the female cultists say hardly anything at all.

That brings us to the player character; they’re aren’t a character, they’re an avatar and silent protagonist. Now there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, but it feels strange. Especially when you play as a female, which I did. Now the character creation itself is fine, especially with the wide variety of outfits, but the rest is pretty bare bones. More to the point, it’s painfully obvious they designed the game with a male lead in mind and then added a gender-switch as an afterthought. Almost everyone in the game refers to you by male pronouns (which to be fair I call my ladyfriends ‘dude’ all the time) but there are a few scenes where you’re found shirtless in the game. Now call me old-fashioned, but I’d have a bit stronger of a reaction than “Oh, you startled me” if I woke up to some weirdo carving the word ‘wrath’ into my tits! I have a sneaking suspicion that they added a gender switch at the last minute because someone reminded them of the time they looked like lazy idiots for claiming your customizable assassin in Assassin’s Creed: Unity couldn’t be a woman because women were too hard to animated.

And now, let’s finally talk about the Seed Family.

We have the leader Joseph Seed, the trainer and disgraced soldier Jacob, the sadistic second in command John, and the seductress Faith. The Far Cry games are known for their charismatic villains and the seeds are no exception, and especially gripping because the second you meet any single one of them you immediately want them dead. The only problem is that, again, they’re so cartoonishly evil that the more you see them the more you want to shove them crotch-first into the mouth of a hungry grizzly bear. Vaas was always one step ahead of you and constantly in your face and Pagan Min was so suave and charming that you kind of wanted to see where he was going with it all.

Not the case with the seeds. When you see them they immediately piss you off, and the more you see them they just keep pissing you off because they keep hiding behind doors, cronies, hallucinations, or plot devices. And hey, that’s fine. As long as you get to shove the barrel of a shotgun right into their mouth and spatter their brains all over the walls of their church then who cares, right?

....

So, let’s talk about the endings of the game.

Once you’ve liberated all three regions of Hope County by killing John, Jacob, and Faith, you return to the main cult compound to arrest Joseph once again. However, once you get there and cuff him you step outside to find your allies under the brainwashing influence of the drug Bliss and a boss fight ensues. When you knock your allies out and revive them, they snap out of their Bliss-induced stupor and turn on Joseph, and once you’ve freed all of them Joseph drops like a hot rock. When Joseph is down and the day is won...this happens.

....no, really.

Right the fuck out of nowhere a nuke lands somewhere in the outskirts of Hope County and you scramble to escape, and pretty soon you black out and wake up in a bunker chained to a bed with Joseph hovering over you saying that you’ll be his first new recruit in the cult. All the allies you previously made die as Hope County is wiped off the map and the game ends, not even giving you a continuation like previous games did and rendering every single thing you did up to this point totally and utterly meaningless.

Now some people have defended this, including the developers, saying that there are radio broadcasts in-game talking about how tensions are raising in Russia and North Korea. I spent hours driving around in the game listening to the radio and I heard no such thing, but if they’re indeed there then this only furthers my suspicion that this was a last-minute change because of the backlash from racist shitbirds and wasn’t the ending the writers and developers originally intended.

For starters, the escalating tensions between Russia, the US, and North Korea aren’t mentioned anywhere else in the game except in the radio broadcasts (which again, I never heard) and despite the Seeds going on and on about “the collapse” we never get any idea of what the collapse is until the end of the game. It’s not even a convincing depiction of a nuke going off! Just some burning trees and a few animals dropping dead as you make your escape with Joseph in tow and neither of you having so much as a sunburn. If this ending was what they planned from the start then they would have went all out, showing in graphic detail the horrors of a nuclear holocaust. How much of a gut-punch would it have been to see Nick Rye hug his wife and newborn daughter just before the skin is blasted off their bones like that scene in Terminator 2 that made me avoid mesh fences for two fucking years? Or Jess run one of her own arrows through her heart to spare herself an agonizing death? Or hell, Hurk, one of the few returning characters in Far Cry, desperately begging the player for help as his face melts off his skull? That would have hit players and hit players hard and people, myself included, wouldn’t be bitching about how out of nowhere and shit the ending is! And that’s to say nothing of the idea of North Korea wasting one of the handful of nukes they have on rural fucking Montana! Jesus H. Tap-dancing Christ, Ubisoft, how fucking stupid do you think we are!?

...okay, fair enough. But still!

Now I know what you’re probably thinking. “Well, damn, that’s grim. Anyway, what’s the good ending like?”

That IS the good ending.

No, I’m not even kidding. Despite the end scenario being Doctor Strangelove by way of Deliverance (and no, that’s not me being snarky, the game references the movie by playing “We’ll Meet Again” during the final cutscene) that’s the good ending because you, the player, are still alive. The bad ending is that after you arrest Seed and see your friends and allies under the influence of Bliss, you’re given the option to let him go and walk away. You then then your Bliss-induced allies walk with Joseph peacefully into the church and then leave with the same three people, in which they get into a car and leave while chatting about getting the army involved and taking Seed out once and for all. One of them then turns on the radio, the song “Only You” plays, and a red haze takes over the screen just before the credits roll heavily implying that you succumbed to the brainwashing drug (which you’re exposed to several times in the game) and either attacked or killed the people you spent the time in the game trying to save. Either way, each ending renders your actions completely and utterly meaningless.

Why did they do this? Well, partially because the Far Cry writers really love the “There is no objective good or evil, everything and everyone is equally terrible” cliche and they assume everyone else does too, but once again I have no doubt in my mind that the ‘good’ ending wasn’t the original ending and was in fact a last-minute change to appease angry racists in order to not alienate what Ubisoft thinks is their core demographic. What a bucket of cocks.

Final Thoughts

Now despite the endings being complete and utter hot garbage that renders all your actions meaningless, there’s still plenty of fun to be had in Far Cry 5. The combat is satisfying, base jumping and flying around never gets old, the characters are great, and despite chickening out on the themes introduced it’s still a plenty serviceable story. It won’t be winning any awards anytime soon, and if you’re looking for some post-2016 return of the Nazis catharsis then I’d go with Wolfenstein II: the New Colossus instead, but there’s still plenty fun to be had exploring the beautiful wilds of Northwest America while gunning down religious nutjobs, hunting dangerous game, and completing side-quests from uprooting doomsday prepper bunkers to making a bull testicle cook-off to raise morale possible.

B-

A solid B-

#Far Cry #Far Cry 5 #Ubisoft #review #Nick Rye #Jess Black #Cheeseburger #Joseph Seed #John Seed #Jacob Seed #Faith Seed #testy festy

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misterbitches · 3 years

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here’s what confuses me. we are on a public platform and people are posting things, tagging them, and even just perusing. ostensibly to be heard and get engagement. that’s how the internet works and what it encourages. so when people put something out there especially when they make it localized (? is that a right word) for access, why is the critique or response, even if it’s unfavorable, now a problem? we put it out there and it exists, if someone stumbles upon it why wouldn’t they engage? otherwise, why bother with all this output? i mean not many people read my posts but it’s a good thing for me to have them because what i do write it helps me understand the world better and something mainstream in ways it could be better and what could be done to get away from it. helping understand the context and history of the problems i am seeing on screen in many diff ways. but i do make it seen for a reason. i have drafts or posts privately that are just for me that i don’t think others should see so that means i do not want that engagement and i am closing it off.

it isn’t like people can’t see it and respond if they so choose bc this is basically a tacit agreement of having this in public. so if you have an opinion and someone disagrees why would that be hard for you if you are the one who put it out there? we know how this website works and how the web works. do we just want to hear what we agree with or even just know? otherwise i wouldn’t know shit. even with my best friends we try and come to a form of understanding and get on the same page or ask questions. i don’t get upset when they say, “no, because” or introduce a new perspective and this happens with the people i am closest to. so on a public place what else would we get? we allow ourselves to be seen...

i don’t think i have blocked anyone but i know people have blocked me and it has been for probably me being annoying but still fairly innocuous when i reply with a critique or make a joke. you take this risk posting it every time. but i dont want to block people because they could be of value at some point even if i want nothing to do with them. but every time it so happens that i say something even a little off from what this person wants—and it’s generally when i go into things in detail—they shut down from the perception that i am being hateful or accusatory or unfair? even when i try de-escalation tactics or being like “calm down” (not that explicitly) so these seem to be very emotional responses to not hearing exactly what we want and knowing there’s objection when there should be anyway. even if pieces are damn near perfect there’s still something. i find it very hard to believe that there’s intense pain enacted on others for liking “unsavory” things when the “unsavory” is the mainstream and it is necessary to uphold these things and for capital to continue to produce what it does. you’re not different when you accept it into your life either critically or uncritically because that is the norm. so when people are knocking the norms, tropes, whatever it’s like a shock every time and like someone is telling you not to enjoy it. but, again, we put this shit out there and want a response so it cannot be just what we want to hear. i hate that i hate the idea that wanting a work to be better and seeing shit critically even as a leftist or whatever is oppressive and limiting other ppl when it is in no way the same or even on par with being silenced in general because of the garbage you find in a work. you will still be the minority and it will still be popular so there’s a false sense of superiority put onto others who disagree by the ones who feel “attacked” or like they can’t defend themselves or whatever. and who fucking says? if some random says so like oh well man. you cannot compare it to the real shit these fans do and the massive fanbases they have and the shunning they love to do then feel as if they are priority in feelings.

they say everyone is sensitive and not able to think about things with nuance but it’s the opposite most times. you aren’t and when someone pops up with it or even says something offhanded cos they dont feel like having a huge discussion that is not the same as pushing others down. there is no majority saying this is wrong and we don’t want it; there’s a majority dedicated to defending it, their choices, and frankly the false sense of even light persecution. especially as adults but in fandom you’re not encouraged to act as a fully fleshed out person for a majority reasons and esp in a fandom that will skew younger. they are reliant on rabid fans or uncritical ones and i have demonstrated that constantly and given quotes etc. we should talk about discourse and what the private owes to the public, what the state owes its viewers, what artists owe the people tuning in. we should talk abou tfreedom of speech forreal and what that means but if we go deep into that you’ll unveil more things you dont’ like how people absolutely rally against this shit and want nothing to do with it. if you don’t want to think about that that is fine but it doesn’t mean others won’t say it.

idk like it may seem insensitive but i dont like the idea that a person pointing out things that are gross or micro or macro agrressive or what the fuck ever is the ruler over the discourse and how people interact with the work when frankly that just isn’t the case in the pattern of the work that people do and utilizing fans and using capital to defend yourself and recreate industry. you may not like to hear that it’s all bullshit but people will say so and it holds not even close to the same weight that the tacit agreement in indulging can sway us towards not great perceptions. the harm of pointing things out, or being rude, or whatever is not the same as what fans will do to those people and the obfuscation of the real fucking issue.

now it’s no longer about the problems in itself but the way people are receptive to the way others respond when they have a problem with the very real and prominent problem. now there’s no interest in engagement or even seeing people who may have more to say to it. if we think constantly about defending our right to like a work then the work takes ona life of its own and it latches on to your emotions even more it’s so fucking silly bc it’s like....this shit isnt for us anyway and if it’s gonna be here we should make it better and talk about it but it’s not about that it’s not about the rapes it’s not about the culture it’s about personal feelings which is why it becomes about how we talk about it as if things that ever skew to the left or focus on liberation would ever be the most popular. since when did saying this is fucking bullshit, this shit sucks, this real “crime” means nothing because it’s just entertainment yet you must find ways to defend your right to see that entertainment. it makes no sense no one is talking about that we’re talking about the ins-and-outs of storytelling and the toxicity and nature of these REAL PROBLEMS THAT ARE PROBLEMS SINCERE PROBLEMS as in there is no negotiation in wrong or right because it is wrong in every sense it’s what you do with that wrongness and what the fuck you want to say. it’s not about what i say about them being fucking shitty about the way they say it. dont focus on the way i dislike it focus on what the fuck im saying man bc this shit is disingenuous and it COMPLETELY eclipses the issues and attitudes and it lets these fucking idiots off the fucking hook for making straight up garbage like not even in a sociopolitical way just thoughtless drivel sometimes. like most times i dont even hate the villains in these shows or the men who are o dark and fucked up but we still got to like them it’s literally like “no nigga like why r u here tho?” what do u fucking add. you’re dead space and they let us know it’s dead space by saying “oh man isn’t life SOOOO complex dont think about it just think about him being a nice rapist okay guys even tho we are gong to do NOTHING ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to establish fucking any of that”

this is what people said for tharntype and it’s what they say about fucking everything whether it’s about gay shit or not. good example is the star wars fans with that guy and that girl or wahtever in that stupid racist franchise. just clamoring to make sure we know you’re good and that you’re okay for thinking that way when no one says you aren’t. but if something is presented then expect to get a fucking response especially abut what it is about at its fucking core. enough of the bullshit about misunderstanding and acknowledge it’s about your comfort in your interests and not having that questioned or antagonized in a way that may implicate you are a bit complicit but fucking all of us are as consumers. you arent hurt for having an opinion that seems to not go with the flow but is certainly part of the status quo. the world relies relies on harm, in a way it is reliant on rape, and that permeates through us and always takes precedent. additionally, again, this shit is mad patriarchal so it does a disservice to us as well as women cos it’s like. no man that’s born out of misogyny actually. what can we do? well, dont rely on the state. but if you dont rely on the state then will you make real money? not the money we’re talking here with the genre in itself. to me that means they dont have an interest in showing different types of lives they have a majority interest in showing “attractive” “conventional” men kissing and making bank.

#a thot

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thinkingaboutsanfrancisco · 3 years

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Grinning practically ear to ear at that, he starts raving about how much fun this will be, and his frenetic energy is infectious. I’ve been stuck here stewing for so long that I’m excited just to get up and move, really; if I stay in this damn seat for much longer, I fear that my ass will become a permanent part of it. S doesn’t quite get that I was teasing about my arm, so much so that I almost cut through and spell that out plainly for him to speed things up, but whatever— he does loosen his latch so I can slide off of this hard stool and plant my feet on the ground. My legs are swollen and sore as always, but gone is that rush of weakness that threatened my knees to collapse on the ground earlier. Not only am I stable enough to stand and stretch, as I turn around to wait for him, I find that there’s even a nice, rejuvenated, little bounce in my step.

Wish I could say the same for him.

Swiveling himself around too hastily for what he’s had, S mirrors precisely what I worried would happen to me and often does without the alcoholic component; vertigo’s vengeful volt screws his eyes shut while he desperately clutches onto the counter to stabilize himself. Miraculously he’s still on his feet, but his stance is shakily askew and he really should sit down until he stops seeing those stars and swirls…

He’s laughing his ass off at this though, so I don’t feel so bad about allowing a chuckle at the irony to slip while I extend my hand out for him, “Forget about me. Are you sure you can dance?”

The second the slightest fragment of vision no longer feels excruciating, he looks up at my gesture and opts to refuse it in the worst way possible by shaking his head.

“Uh… yeah! Yeah, don’t… don’t worry about me, I’m just, just really feeling those shots… it’ll go away…” He insists, but the way he’s so out of breath narrows my doubtful brow deeper.

Not if you keep doing that shit.

“Are you sure you’re alright?” I ask again, flexing my hand firmer for him to do the smart thing and grab ahold of it. He doesn’t, because he’s not— he’s all left...he’s a leftist.

Ah...clever one, man. Very clever.

It’s nowhere near enough to make me double over, but it merits a snort and slight head shake over how I should’ve listened to him the first time so I could’ve spared his awful save. Either way, he’s laughing and standing up a little straighter, and I take it that the spell has largely subsided, so I lean my arm back on the corner of the counter and grab my half-empty cup of Coke for a quick drink. Don’t want it to go to waste.

“Alright, fucker,” He says when his fit subsides, though I’m unsure if he’s referring to me or it’s his way of coercing himself into swallowing down number six. I absolutely cringe watching him, especially when he slams the glass and his hand down hard onto the marble, yet he doesn’t blink, “Let’s fucking tear this bitch UP!”

At this rate, you seriously might.

I smirk to myself at that, but he does manage to turn around without incident, so I set my cup down and start following his lead. With each step I can feel the bass thumping underneath my feet louder and harder but I’m not bludgeoned by it like before. It’s a swift and snappy house beat that struts to keep its pace with the rapid fire flow of the woman rapping it. I have no idea who she is, but the confidence cutting through her voice commands that I should. She’s cocky, sure, but she sure as hell doesn’t sound insipid or vapid. When she asserts that she’s a rude bitch, I fucking believe her — and, in a world currently plagued by the new plastic that is Iggy Australia, this song’s ample authenticity is refreshing. It’s the real fucking deal.

The groove puts a little glide in my gait and dodging my way through here doesn’t feel as draining as it did earlier. Contorting myself around the crowd is still uncomfortable and I remain fearful of someone drenching my dad’s shirt with their sloshing cups of booze, but they do step aside and my awkward, apologetic, smile is sufficient enough to even garner a couple mutterings of oh sorry in return as we pass through. Shit, the strobes aren’t bothering me as much anymore either. I flinched at their first flash, but the closer we get the more they are engulfed in the thick purple and blue fog infiltrating the air. It’s cool, everything’s all cool.

The dam breaks and we're at the crest of the congregation’s wild wave; submerged in a scary sea of shaking and spinning. Steadily stamping their sneakers and stilettos, they’re all sporting soused smiles while they sway; some simmer in their sinful satisfaction as they spread their hands all over the sweaty bodies of their partners, while others shine in the serenity of their solitude, splaying their fingers through the smoke and loosely reaching into their sky. With movements so fluid and free, S steps into the latter seamlessly. He’s having so much fun and...I’m fucking stuck, standing here all stiff and stupefied; procrastinating. I like this song, for Christ sake! Enough for me to want to dance to it, even—but I can’t! I-I don’t know where to fucking begin and I don’t belon—

“J! What the fuck are you doing?! Dance with me, man!” My friend’s voice cuts through all of this noise and rings around in my head. I want to form some sort of answer for my failure to follow through, but it’s all fruitless. Facing me now, he lowers his arms and grabs me by my cold, fingers, trying to raise my limp limbs up like I’m Pinocchio. This is just...this is so ridiculous. We look fucking insane! But he doesn’t care and, as I look around us, I realize that he’s telling me the truth: no one else really does either.

“Okay, okay. I’ll do it,” I relent, freeing my hands from his grasp and stepping over to the left of him to give myself some space. My shoulders are the first to succumb to shaking off the rust, shimmying them to the sound that my head starts moving along to. Not the most complex dance moves, I know, but they can’t be the worst ones on this floor of dizzy drunkards...

It’s fun initially, letting myself work out some of my pent up energy to this absolute banger, yet I’m all too aware that I lack the substance fueled stamina that must be keeping everyone else energized and I soon feel rather silly in the most flat, futile, sense. Like..this is it? This is all I’m doing? After making such Herculean effort to liberate myself from stagnancy, I’m stuck in one spot again?

If I’m going to do that, I think I prefer the bar…

Whatever, I agreed to this and I’ll see it through, regardless if I’m growing rather bored. I try to stimulate my mind by scanning around for the snowbirds around us as I continue swaying, hoping to spot one close by that looks like they’re going to come down so I can zero in on them when they inevitably come off of the perch, but it’s quite the blurry crapshoot with all of the bouncing in the fog and I’m soon jarred out of it all by this guffaw.

Looking back to its source, I find that S has ceased all other of his other movements to clutch his sides as he’s caught in the throes of hysteria. It’s pretty on par for his dangerously tipsy ass, except for his eyes aren’t closed this time. There’s a subject inspiring this fit.

Me.

He’s laughing at me.

And this provokes my offense greatly.

How dare he double over at my dazzling dance moves! Doesn’t he know what beauty he’s being bestowed with? C’mon man, Fred Astaire would be jealous of the flare my feet carry on this fucking floor!

Nahhhhhhhh, even David Byrne’s footwork is more fashionable than mine. I know I dance like shit, it’s alright, but so much for him not caring what I look like...

“Whatcha laughing at, man?” I ask with feigned innocence inflecting my pitch, a mischievous smile creeping in while I continue to bop my head, “What’s so funny?”

#/brandnewdancebutidontknowitsname #04172015 #the bros #posting on november 8th AFTER the election...........i feel like i have come full circle #jason half-remembering azealia enough from twitter to at least retain the australia in igloo australia but not knowing her music is such #a 2015 thing #back at it again with the reminder that this is a PERIOD PIECE NOW...............

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covid19worldnews · 3 years

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What If Facebook Is the Real ‘Silent Majority’?

The Shift

Right-wing influencers are dominating the political discussion on Facebook, raising questions about whether it will translate into electoral success in November.

President Trump continues to have a lot of support among users on the social network.Credit…Doug Mills/The New York Times

Published Aug. 27, 2020Updated Nov. 4, 2020, 6:42 a.m. ET

Listen, liberals. If you don’t think Donald Trump can get re-elected in November, you need to spend more time on Facebook.

Since the 2016 election, I’ve been obsessively tracking how partisan political content is performing on Facebook, the world’s largest and arguably most influential media platform. Every morning, one of the first browser tabs I open is CrowdTangle — a handy Facebook-owned data tool that offers a bird’s-eye view of what’s popular on the platform. I check which politicians and pundits are going viral. I geek out on trending topics. I browse the previous day’s stories to see which got the most reactions, shares and comments.

Most days, the leader board looks roughly the same: conservative post after conservative post, with the occasional liberal interloper. (If you want to see these lists for yourselves, you can check out @FacebooksTop10, a Twitter account I created that shows the top 10 most-interacted-with link posts by U.S. Facebook pages every day.)

It’s no secret that, despite Mr. Trump’s claims of Silicon Valley censorship, Facebook has been a boon to him and his allies, and hyperpartisan Facebook pages are nothing new. (In fact, my colleague John Herrman wrote about them four years ago this month.)

But what sticks out, when you dig in to the data, is just how dominant the Facebook right truly is. Pro-Trump political influencers have spent years building a well-oiled media machine that swarms around every major news story, creating a torrent of viral commentary that reliably drowns out both the mainstream media and the liberal opposition.

The result is a kind of parallel media universe that left-of-center Facebook users may never encounter, but that has been stunningly effective in shaping its own version of reality. Inside the right-wing Facebook bubble, President Trump’s response to Covid-19 has been strong and effective, Joe Biden is barely capable of forming sentences, and Black Lives Matter is a dangerous group of violent looters.

Mr. Trump and his supporters are betting that, despite being behind Mr. Biden in the polls, a “silent majority” will carry him to re-election. Donald Trump Jr., the president’s oldest and most online son, made that argument himself at the Republican National Convention this week. And while I’m not a political analyst, I know enough about the modern media landscape to know that looking at people’s revealed preferences — what they actually read, watch, and click on when nobody’s looking — is often a better indicator of how they’ll act than interviewing them at diners, or listening to what they’re willing to say out loud to a pollster.

Maybe Mr. Trump’s “silent majority,” in other words, only seems silent because we’re not looking at their Facebook feeds.

“We live in two different countries right now,” said Eric Wilson, a Republican digital strategist and digital director of Marco Rubio’s 2016 campaign. Facebook’s media ecosystem, he said, is “a huge blind spot for people who are up to speed on what’s on the front page of The New York Times and what’s leading the hour on CNN.”

Image

Mr. Trump with Terrence K. Williams, a conservative comedian, at the White House last year.Credit…Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Agence France-Presse, via Getty Images

To be sure, Facebook is not the only medium where right-wing content thrives. Millions of Americans still get their news from cable news and talk radio, where conservative voices have dominated for years. Many pro-Trump Facebook influencers also have sizable presences on Twitter, YouTube and other social networks.

But the right’s dominance on Facebook, specifically, is something to behold. Here are just a few data points I pulled from CrowdTangle this week:

The conservative commentator Ben Shapiro has gotten 56 million total interactions on his Facebook page in the last 30 days. That’s more than the main pages of ABC News, NBC News, The New York Times, The Washington Post and NPR combined. (Data from a different firm, NewsWhip, showed that Mr. Shapiro’s news outlet, The Daily Wire, was the No. 1 publisher on Facebook in July.)

Facebook posts by Breitbart, the far-right news outlet, have been shared four million times in the past 30 days, roughly three times as many as posts from the official pages of every Democratic member of the U.S. Senate combined.

The most-shared Facebook post containing the term “Black Lives Matter” over the past six months is a June video by the right-wing commentators The Hodgetwins, which calls the racial justice movement a “damn lie.” The second most-shared Black Lives Matter post? A different viral video from The Hodgetwins, this one calling the movement a “leftist lie.” (The Hodgetwins also have the 4th, 6th, and 12th most shared posts.)

Terrence K. Williams, a conservative comedian and Trump supporter, has averaged 86,500 interactions per Facebook post in August, more than twice as many as Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential nominee, who has averaged 39,000 interactions per post. (Mr. Trump outdoes them both, naturally, with an average of 92,000 interactions per post.)

A few caveats, before my Democratic readers jump off the nearest pier.

These figures include only posts on public pages, in public groups, and by verified accounts, and they don’t include Facebook ads, where the Biden campaign has been outspending the Trump campaign in recent weeks. Counting Facebook interactions doesn’t tell you how someone felt about a post, so it’s possible some conservative posts are being hate-shared by liberals. And Facebook has argued that engagement isn’t the same thing as popularity.

“These points look mostly at how people engage with content, which should not be confused with how many people actually see it on Facebook,” Joe Osborne, a Facebook spokesman, said in a statement. Mr. Osborne added that “when you look at the content that gets the most reach across Facebook, it’s not at all as partisan as this reporting suggests.” (Facebook does not disclose this type of data publicly, except once in a while in response to my tweets.)

Democrats aren’t totally absent from Facebook’s upper echelon. Ridin’ With Biden, a pro-Biden page started in April by the founders of the liberal Facebook page Occupy Democrats, has quadrupled its following over the past three months, and routinely gets more engagement than Breitbart and other right-wing heavy-hitters. Individual posts by Bernie Sanders, Barack Obama and other prominent Democrats have broken through in recent weeks.

And political campaigners have pointed out, correctly, that being popular on the internet isn’t a guarantee of electoral success. (“Retweets don’t vote,” as an experienced Democratic operative once told me.) In addition, Facebook’s older, more conservative user base may not reflect what’s happening on platforms like Instagram and TikTok, which draw a younger crowd.

Still, the platform’s sheer scale makes it vital to understand. As of 2019, 70 percent of American adults used Facebook, and 43 percent of Americans got news on the platform, according to the Pew Research Center. (Those numbers may have increased because of the pandemic.) We know that the company’s product decisions can make or break political movements, move fringe ideas into the mainstream, or amplify partisan polarization. Registering four million voters before the November election, as Facebook has said it would do, could be a decisive force all on its own. (Typically, higher turnout benefits Democrats, but given what we know about the media diets of hyperactive Facebook users, who knows?)

The reason right-wing content performs so well on Facebook is no mystery. The platform is designed to amplify emotionally resonant posts, and conservative commentators are skilled at turning passionate grievances into powerful algorithm fodder. The company also appears willing to bend its rules for popular conservative influencers. Recent reports by BuzzFeed News and NBC News, based on leaked documents, found that Facebook executives had removed “strikes” from the accounts of several high-profile conservative pages that had shared viral misinformation in violation of the company’s rules.

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The Biden campaign has been outspending the Trump campaign on Facebook in recent weeks.Credit…Pete Marovich for The New York Times

Over the past few years, I’ve come to view my daily Facebook data-dive as a kind of early-warning system — a rough gauge of what’s grabbing America’s attention on any given day, and which stories and perspectives will likely break through in the days to come.

And looking at Facebook’s lopsided political media ecosystem might be a useful reality check for Democrats who think Mr. Biden will coast to victory in November.

After all, Mr. Trump’s surging popularity showed up online before it showed up in any polls in 2016. And even though much about Facebook, and American politics, has changed in the past four years, the basic laws of social media physics still apply. Controversy wins. Negative beats positive. All attention looks good to an algorithm.

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Brad Parscale led Mr. Trump’s digital efforts in 2016. Credit…Saul Loeb/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images

Brad Parscale — the digital director of Mr. Trump’s 2016 campaign — told “60 Minutes” that of everything Mr. Trump did that year, the thing that actually moved the needle was Facebook.

“Facebook was the method,” Mr. Parscale said. “It was the highway which his car drove on.”

That highway is still open. And right now, the fastest cars on it have MAGA bumper stickers.

https://www.covid19snews.com/2020/11/04/what-if-facebook-is-the-real-silent-majority/

#covid19

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zucca101 · 7 years

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Friendship ending

A lot of people have had friends dump them because they either voted for Trump or don’t hate Trump enough.

And when they are forced to see that the friends they try to dump aren’t horrible people, they perform mental gymnastics to convince themselves that their former friends are horrible people.

The following is a long rant from one such friend of mine and my response. If you recognize who it is, I DEMAND you seek no reprisal from them. I am keeping them anonymous to protect their identity for just that reason.

... A leftist, really now. Ahaha, oh wow.

*Link to the post I made about Lincoln being shot by a Leftist*-Z

Yes, noted Confederate sympathizer and anti-abolitionist John Wilkes Booth. A leftist.I was already keeping you at a healthy arm's length while putting up a vague semblance of friendship for the sake of not rocking the boat on that one server we're in, but holy shit have you ever lost your damn marbles. I can't do this, lmaoI mean, you've got an impressive collection of bullshit on that blog of yours all around, but this? chef kissHonestly, on some level, you impress me. How someone can claim to be anti-establishment while sucking up to the establishment every possible way they can, how someone can claim to be "seeking truth" only to disregard all evidence that can't be traced back to some skeezy reactionary Facebook page or another delivered to you through the impermeable little bubble of right-wingers you've created for yourself along with the right wing side of mass media your purportedly loathe so much... tell me, just how much cognitive dissonance do you deal with on a daily basis?How does it feel to claim to be "pro life", or to claim that you care about others only to push for measures to restrict access to healthcare, or to vehemently yell against anything the government could do that would make it easier for people to come out of the vicious spiral of poverty?(edited)How does it feel to constantly pretend to care about minorities, but only ever use us as gotchas to other minorities that you've internally designated as universally bad in spite of any evidence to the contrary - not to mention, without ever listening to us if we tell you you did something wrong, instead cherry picking those of us willing enough to suck up to the establishment to tell you what you want to hear, so you never have to confront the idea you may have done something wrong?(edited)Hell, isn't that what they call "virtue signaling" in your circles?Beyond your dishonesty to others, ask yourself this: are you even honest to yourself? Aren't you robbing yourself of any kind of personal growth by doing all this? Are you really contributing anything positive to this world by constantly spreading unchecked factoids that instantly fall apart the moment you expose them to any actual scientific sources (you know, the ones people in your general political corner like to call "fake news"), or by spreading the idea that people in dire straits should just pull themselves up by their bootstraps?Or for that matter, by resisting any measure of change towards a fairer society and instead vocally gushing about the virtues of a system that, by its very nature, its very definition, its very -essence- is about fucking over who you can, and quietly plugging your ears to anything you hear about the many negative consequences it has for the world, or the people living in it?Come back to me once you've learned how to maintain a shred of integrity, I suppose. Maybe take some time to reflect on what it means to be a good person. I can't be friends with someone to whom I have to explain why they should care about other people.Goodbye.

This is my response:

In 1865 John Wilkes Booth, a Democrat, assassinated Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States.

In 1881 a left wing radical Democrat shot James Garfield, President of the United States who later died from the wound.

In 1963 Lee Harvey Oswald, a radical left wing socialist, assassinated John F. Kennedy, President of the United States.

In 1975 a left wing radical Democrat fired shots at Gerald Ford, President of the United States.

In 1983 John Hinckley, a registered Democrat, shot and wounded Ronald Reagan and paralyzed a member of his cabinet.

... In 1984 James Huberty, a disgruntled Democrat, shot and killed 22 people in a McDonalds restaurant in San Ysidro, CA.

In 1986 Patrick Sherril, a disgruntled Democrat, shot and killed 15 people in an Oklahoma post office.

In 1990 James Pough, a disgruntled Democrat, shot and killed 10 people at a GMAC office.

In 1991 George Hennard, a disgruntled Democrat, shot and killed 23 people in a Lubys cafeteria.

In 1995 James Daniel Simpson, a disgruntled Democrat, shot and killed 5 coworkers in a Texas laboratory.

In 1999 Larry Asbrook, a disgruntled Democrat, shot and killed 8 people at a church service.

In 2001 a left wing radical Democrat fired shots at the White House in a failed attempt to kill George W. Bush, President of the US.

In 2003 Douglas Williams, a disgruntled Democrat, shot and killed 7 people at a Lockheed Martin plant.

In 2007 Seung - Hui Cho, a registered Democrat, shot and killed 32 people in Virginia Tech.

In 2010 Jared Lee Loughner, a mentalliy ill registered Democrat, shot Rep. Gabrielle Giffords and killed 6 others.

In 2011 James Holmes, a registered Democrat, went into a movie theater and shot and killed 12 people.

In 2012 Andrew Engeldinger, a disgruntled Democrat, shot and killed 7 people in Minneapolis.

In 2013 Adam Lanza, a registered Democrat, shot and killed men, women, and children in the Sandy Hook school massacre.

Leftist? Maybe JWB was, maybe he wasn't. But a Democrat, he assuredly was. Perhaps I overreached in saying he was a Leftist, but I should clarify that when I say 'Leftist' I don't mean 'someone on the Left'. I mean someone who believes The Left is the ONLY way. The same way I draw distinction between Muslims and Islamists. Islamists want to push it on others. Muslims are the broadest defition of those who follow Islam.

And what establishment am I sucking up to....? I don't watch Fox with any kind of regularity. I get most of my facts from self-described 'classic liberals' whose hearts are on the Left, but their minds are more centrist. They have intellectual honesty. I listen to Gavin McInnis to blow off steam, Bill Whittle for the Right of Center take on news and Sargon for Left of Center.

I don't care for the mass media because while I suspected that they were liars and obfuscating before, to finally have iron-clad proof of it is extremely liberating.

And I CHALLENGE YOU to show me where I said that women should not have access to healthcare. Or even hinted at it. What, you think because I know Single Payer is garbage that will create a pile of corpses. I'm against healthcare for women? I've even said that my stance on abortions is that it should be between the woman and her doctor, not the woman, the government, the doctor, some pencil pushers and more. Just as my stance on same-sex marriage is that it should be between a couple and the church of their choice, not to make it legally compulsory and simply flip the oppression over rather than making it fair and equal of measure. And where abortions are concerned, the parental rights of the father are nonexistent. Now, in cases such as incest and rape (Which if you look at the stats, represent a small minority of abortions) still strongly urge the mother to consider life, but if she chooses abortion, while I find it extremely distasteful (The child DOES NOT HAVE A SAY IN THIS) I fully understand and sympathize with the decision.

As for helping people out of poverty, you know what's the BEST way out of poverty that ISN'T a government program?

A job. A simple job. And if the government creates conditions that *encourage* job growth, then you accomplish the same end without making people dependent on the governmnet.

That's not to say that there shouldn't be charity for people who TRULY cannot help themselves. That's a given. But when you extend the scope of those within the perview of the government to give money to to include people who CAN help themselves, then you create dependents. And it's not that they're bad or lazy people. They're taking the least complicated route. If you get more money for not working than you do for working, you'll take the one that affords you free time to spend with your family, friends or on your own pursuits.

Constantly pretend to.... universally bad...? WHAT....? Dude, don't even try that one. Blah-blah, anyone Right of Mao is racist, blah. Pardon my French, but go fly a frikken kite. In my tabletop gaming group, my friend Paul, 2nd Generation Japanese immigrant, is the most decent and kind man I've had the pleasure of knowing. He's a good dad to his kids and a good husband to his wife. My freind Zach is from a huge Filipino family and he's the best GM I've ever met, short of my oldest brother. John grew up in a Cadillac before his parents legally became citizens and came up to America from Mexico. These are guys I trust, literally, with my life. And none of us give a crap what the other looks like.

And I admit, for a while I was 100% not on board with Transsexualism. But since then I've come to stand that an adult who has spoken to a therapist and doctor, sorted out their feelings and decided after consideration that they wish to transition is completely fine by me. It doesn't hurt me or anyone else and if they've spoken to a therapist, then they're not setting themselves up for something regrettable. Now, trans-trenders, who want the status of being special and different, but don't want to go through the heartache and effort of making that transition, I call out for their bullshit, because not only are they full of shit, they're robbing REAL transsexuals of their credibility, their agency and their respect. And for some transsexuals to come out and say 'You don't have a right not to have sex with a transsexual', can't you see how that would rub some folk the wrong way?

Don't even try to talk to me about science, friend. I studied biology, agricultural science and psychology and I know a thing or two and when someone obfuscates or has nothing peer-reviewed, then I get suspicious. Again, I'd sorely love for you to point out where I was 'anti-science'.

And if you're suggesting that Socialism is your fluffy 'Fair Society' then I suggest you travel to Venezuala. I have a friend who lives there and the picture he paints is NOT a pretty one. How do you define a 'Fair society'? Because I define it as a society that rewards effort. You do a hard day's work, you make a fair wage and you work your way up the ladder. You can't try to take luck or privilege into account on EITHER Socialism or Capitalism, because there is no way to quantify the variable of luck and when you look at privelege, then it exists in the pipedream of Socialism too, because the people running it will ALWAYS BE BETTER OFF than the people who are not. That's simple human nature. The Great Wheel of Life as the Buddhists describe still exerts its effect on a Socialist state as much as a Capitalist. But unlike Socialism, at least in Capitalism you have, barring disability, the same shot as anyone else does to earn a good living.

I find it laughable that you sit there, where you are, and decry someone you know through occasional chats as either a good person or a not good person based on arbitrary variables.

See, the truth is that life is not as black and white as that. It's an exquisite composition of greys and other colors.

Sometimes life is good, sometimes life is not, but if you are free to self-determination (Something you DO NOT HAVE IN SOCIALISM) then you have a chance to better yourself. You DARE to accuse me of not caring about people out of one side of your mouth, while, with the other, propping up Socialism, which *DOES NOT CARE* about people to the point that a child is worthy of sacrifice due to SIMPLE INCONVENIENCE?! Sorry, but *fuck* that is the very cognative dissonance you accuse me of in plain and flagrant view.

I push myself to be a good person. I don't hurt people, I volunteer, I help the seniors at my church with many needs, I'm there for my friends and family and will drop what I'm doing to help, I treat everyone working retail with respect and actively try to make their day brighter, I don't care what color someone's skin is, I don't care if someone is disabled (My best friend back in Youth Bowling League and a better bowler than I, was a deaf boy named Arron), and I am generally considered to be very 'chill' in person and am so without chemical intervention. Does that make me a good person? I don't rightly know. I just do the best I can with what I've got. And I don't *dare* to assume that I have moral highground unless it's a truly clear-cut case. I've never killed, raped (Even though 3rd Wave Feminism insists that in every man there is a rapist that needs to be taught not to rape_) or stolen anything (Some shoplifting in my youth notwithstanding). In other words, I try to be a decent and polite person and let the world decide if I am or not a good person.

But what boggles my mind is that the line between good person and bad person is tied DIRECTLY to what side of the political spectrum they fall under. That is simplisticly childish. As is the 'Come back to me when you care about people' nonsense.

I will again wait for you to come to your senses and realize that life is not a cartoon with cartoonishly one-note people.

Genuinely warm regards,

-Zucca

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evilelitest2 · 7 years

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100 Days of Trump Day 60: 1984

Welcome back to 100 Days of Trump, where we try to sum up WTF happened in 2016 in 100 recommendations. Today we are going to talk to the ganddaddy of them all, 1984....and let me just get this out of the way. Orwell was a Socialist, he was extremely left wing, his criticism of communism (and it is more than just communism he is critical of) wasn’t coming from a right wing place. Now one of Orwells main theory was actually disproved, if you don’t have a word for something it doesn't keep you from articulating it, usually by making a new word via language drift. When Mao Zedong created Simplified Chinese he deliberately tried to remove certain phases and concepts from the language...but very quickly that failed, the Chinese just used new terms or loan words. But what I do want to talk about with 1984 is the co-option of language, yes I am banging that drum again.

See the regime Ingoc is specifically said to lack any real ideology, its most defining traits is its inconsistency, “We have always been at war with east asia” But a political regime must have ideological rhetoric, even if it has no ideology itself, and so lacking any core beliefs, they instead latch upon other ideas and concepts and co-opt them for their own purpose. And the Far Right (though not necessarily the more ‘moderate’ right) doesn’t really have a coherent political ideology beyond vague “I oppose these things” when you leave them alone to make their own theories it just turns into absolute shit. And the greatest irony is that if you look at their writings, not only do they all sound like each other with no discernible difference, they all use the same phases over and over again, like cuck. But the thing I find interesting is...almost all of those phases are leftist terms they just stop (not cuck obviously). Here let me give a list of their mindlessly parroted phases that the Neoreactionary Right just can’t get enough of

Politically Correct

This was originally a socialist/communist term used by people like Orwell and Troskey against Stalinist style communists, politically correct mean that they followed the party line mindlessly without questioning. If you used the word in its originally meaning, then you’d be using it against republicans who put aside previous objections in order to work with Trump. Then it came to mean basically “Corporate works trying to pretend to be progressive without actually being progressive” a decidedly left wing charge. But the right got it so not it just kinda means “Giving a shit about social justice” Speaking of which

Social Justice Warrior

This was actually a left wing term, I’m serious, I remember when it was first spreading around left wing internet and I was like “god damn this is a useful term” And holy crap did that get co-opted fast. SJW originally was a word to use for leftists who advocated a much more militant and “Us vs. them” mentality, basically for the modern day Marat or Robespierre. This time of liberal disagreement goes back for quite a long way, the question of reform vs. revolution, and its not necessarily an ideological difference as it is a practical one, and it was nice to have a term to those people who fetishize the idea of violent revolution utterly ignorant of its results (spoiler warning, it doesn’t end well). But not it is just a blanket term to mean “people I don’t like”

White Knight

Man i remember when this was a feminist term, it was a great term, it basically referred to men who try to defend women out of a desire for sex, which is a creepy thing that happens all the time. Problem now is that any man who like...doesn’t think that Anita Sarkeesian is trying to take over the world is a white knight by default.

Virtue Signalling

Basically this is when somebody obstains from doing something horrible and then calls attention to it so that everybody will value and respect them, social justices entirely for the praise. Good term, we have all met that one guy who does that. Problem is now that anybody who is like “Man, it is really awful the way women are consistently harassed on the internet” and the immediate response is “well you are just virtue signalling”.

MLK

MLK’s entire existence has become one giant use of Rightists misusing him to support their argument, and then in response leftist pretending he was somehow a violent revolutionary cause that makes sense.

Regressive Leftist

This one originally means to people who are supposedly left wing but actually seem to hold really non left wing views

Ethics in Game Journalism

This might shock you but long before Gamergate was the glimmer in Ejoni’s empty souless eyes there were a lot of people talking about how corrupt games journalism is, because it fucking is but guess what? Most of them didn’t join up with GG, in fact many like Jim Sterling actually opposed GG and none of them were talking about indie devs interacting with games journalist for good reviews, they were instead talking about giant corporations buying adds on gaming journalist sites to get good reviews, the giant corporations that GG didn’t spend its time talking about in favor of how an indie game developer and a youtube feminist are somehow responsible for everything wrong in a multi billion dollar industry.

Orwell himself

And of course, Orwell himself suffered this, despite being, I will say this again, a socialist, you see the term orwellian used to refer to the very same ideology Orwell held, its fucking maddening. You have folks online like RedbloodedAmerican who literally say “Socialism has never produced anything of value ever” and then use the term Orwellian without any bat of irony.

Part of this is that when these terms of defined, they are usually only defined in what they are, not what they aren’t, which makes them very easy to co-opt, after all the original definition didn’t not mean this right? Good hint for future leftist term makings, when you make something up, very specifically say what it isn’t. Orwell would have done better I feel if he had very specifically made it clear what his regime was not as much as what it was.

but we don’t just see this in a political context, I mean take the term

Mary Sue

It is suppose to mean a character who is way too powerful for the narrative and around whom the narrative revolves because they are always correct, and now kinda means “thing I don’t like”

But the right doesn’t just always co-opt the left, they have lots of neat little terms that instead exist to sort of hide to themselves and others how utterly abhorrent the whole lot of them are. I mean when you say

Family Values

When being homophobic or anti feminist, it basically doesn’t mean anything, I mean....what do families as a collective unit produce universal values? All of them? I mean the Judeo Claudians were a family should I take advice from them? What defines a family? What if a family disagrees? How does that mean anything at all?

Intelligent Design

This literally exists to make creationism sound less stupid than creationism, but of course every single person who believes in Intelligent Design is of course a creationist.

White Nationalist

Rather than just saying ‘I’m a nazi” they use this cute little term instead, because their beliefs are basically the same as the nazis except Pan European rather than just German.

Spengler

This one honestly confuses me, because Spengler was right wing I mean did any of them actually read Decline of the West

The point is that we just see words used not for a method of communication, but instead as a way to create a larger point

The list goes on and on but I want to get to my main point, I want to talk about the psychology going on with this constant revisionist of language, it isn’t because they are stupid (I mean it is but that isn’t the main point) its about keeping people angry, about creating a constant sense of anger and embittered paranoia. Because here is the dirty little secret of the Far Right, if you actually calm them the fuck down and don’t have an enemy to oppose....they don’t really have all that much in common. IN fact a lot of them have beliefs that are actually really left wing. Again and again we have found that if you poll Americans based on specific issues like “Should healthcare be affordable”and “Does this country have too much of a wealth gap” and “Do the rich not pay enough in taxes” and a lot of hardcore republican suddenly sound like socialists. CGP Grey noted that if you abstract enough and talk to people about the electoral college they will almost uniformly come out and say “Wow, that is awful” but the moment they realize that they benefit from it, they will instantly start to change their tune. Because to a lot of Republican voters, it isn’t actually about the issues, its about fucking over “The enemy” which in this case is the democrats, and as long as people are fucking pissed, they don’t really fully listen to the whole platform of the guy they supported. I had this issue with Obama/Clinton supporters where their supporters just stopped listening when they got to things they didn't’ like about the candidate, because it isn’t actually about the core issues, its about fear and hatred of the other side. But maintaining that level of hatred is actually pretty difficult, because the moment people calm down a tad and go home, watch TV and find out the world hasn’t ended, they start to realize that you are kinda hyperbolic and most importantly, might become vulnerable to leftists pointing out that they actually agree on most issues. So you need to keep them mad, constantly perpetually mad, just endlessly angry, so that they never really have that moment of calming the fuck down and actually thinking about the issues. And Angry people aren’t famous for rational decisions

Yet again reminder of why Hitchens is an utterly worthless pseudo intellectual who reminds me a lot of Alex Jones, who is basically the result of a human being who has been angry for decades and has never calmed down.

This is also why these buzzwords are so important, they distract from the issue as a whole, because family values...I has family, and I don’t wants family to change gah. Rather than sitting them down and talking to them about what a changing modern society actually means for a family they just kind of vaguely panic because they aren’t in a head-space where they are ready to reason (This is worse for single issue voters). Like i’ve spoken to people about the Iraq War and once I get to “So how do you win a war on terror” they suddenly kinda stop and go “Huh....wait” or “How do you win a war on drugs” if they aren’t viewing in from the lenses of a culture war, they become more receptive. So the point of the right (who i remind you, have interests which most of the country doesn’t like, as Trump’s supporters are finding out right now). I mean literally at this moment, we are seeing people go “Well I like the ACA I just don’t like Obamacare” when they are the SAME FUCKING THING

And that is where the Right wing Media empire comes in and by that I mean the two min of hate, where you can take all of your collective insecurities anger and frustrations in life and everything around you and blame it on one nebulous force of “Them”. Huh where have I seen that before?

If you watch folks like THunderfoot, Sargon or other anti feminists, they fixate a fucking tone of attention on this extremely standard video series, it is notably shocking how much time they spend talking about really basic theory level stuff and then you realize....Anita, Zoe Quinn, Brianna Wu and Hillary Clinton are literally the whole feminists they know. Like they haven’t read any of the material, they don’t know any of these people, they don’t even know what feminism is other than a vague “bad thing” that that they don’t like and blame for all their problems. This is why so called “Free speech” advocates” are totally ok with GSM folks having videos put down, why devout Christians vote for a man who admitted to sexual assault, why people who hate the Eastern Elites are always getting in bed with Goldman sachs or why the working class voted for Trump, it isn’t actually about the issues, its about screwing the other guy.

It is into this environment that Trump thrives, because pointing to a vague, undefinable, conspiratorial other is where he thrives and he serves as the culminate conductor of rage (that should be a title of a book on this subject honestly)

#100 Days of Trump #1984 #George Orwell #totalitarianism #Politically Correct #Social Justice Warrior #virtue signalling #Ingoc #Two Minute of hate #anita sarkeesian #Zoe Quinn #Gamergate

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fapangel · 7 years

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So why are people still touting Hillary Clinton like she is still relevant and why she brings herself to the public spotlight? Is it because Trump supposedly doing awful? Is it because they are shilling for a 2020 election ? Or is it because she thinks she dindu nuffin and the electoral votes didn't matter but popular?

Because the Democrat’s bench is incredibly thin, and judging from Google, everyone knows it. Some put it in starker and more eloquently direct terms than others, but aside from a single demographics-based argument (that seems pretty thin to me) I can’t find any pontificating on the ‘net as to why the Democrat’s bench is still this thin.

In that caffeine-fueled rant of mine a few posts down, I opined that the thin bench has much to do with how Democrats engage in idol-worship and form personality cults around their politicians, and that this, in turn, explains why they nurture multi-century political family dynasties, like the Kennedy’s (currently making another comeback,) and the Clintons. And apparently some Democrats see it, too. But even with that... why aren’t there any hungry up-and-comers at the low levels of state politics? State governors, and such?

A very interesting statistic I learned in my Campaigns and Elections class is, the average President wins office only seven years after their first significant electoral victory. That’s right - seven. George W. Bush is a typical example - he became Governor of Texas in 1994, and won the Presidency in 2000. There’s a reason for this - the ideal President is one who has some fire, who can put some Energy into the Executive, as Hamilton argued in Federalist Paper #70. In short, the American people do not like wishy-washy Presidents with lots of compromises and skeletons in the closet - which is exactly what long-serving senators collect, and why they very, very rarely win elections (note that Obama hand’t finished his first Senate term when he beat McCain like a drum.) The upshot of this is that Presidential candidates often come out of relative nowhere. My high school journalism teacher - a hard-core, old-school liberal and the person who instilled more journalistic ethics in me than anyone else - told me to keep my eye on Obama in 2005. And she wasn’t the only one watching him then... but by the same token, he was actually in the US Senate by then, having just won the Illinois election. He’d been a state senator in Illinois since 1994, but who pays attention to them? There’s so many, and they’re rarely noticeable till they start flexing towards gubernatorial aspirations. And just as often they’re beaten by a city mayor, or even a first-timer businessman, as many governors were before running.

And yet despite this, the Republicans were able to stack up Ted Cruz (Texas Solicitor-General and still-first-term Senator,) Marco Rubio (state senator, then US Senator, much like Obama,) John Kasich (sitting Governor of Ohio and retired US Representative,) Ben Carson (neurosurgeon, no prior political experience,) Jeb Bush (former Governor of Florida, family history,) Rand Paul (another recent Tea Party senator, like Cruz,) Chris Christie (Governor of New Jersey, lawyer before that,) Mike Huckabee (former Lt. Governor, then Governor of Arkansas, Carly Fiorina (CEO of Hewlett-Packard, of all damn things,) Jim Gilmore, (Governor of Virginia, no political career before that,) and Rick Santorum, (US Senator from Pennsylvania.)

Compare this to the Democrat’s 2016 primary roster: Hillary Clinton versus Bernie Sanders, with only one dropout during the primaries (Martin O’Malley, former governor of Maryland - did you ever hear of him? I sure as hell didn’t.) Fuck just compare the Wikipedia pages; the long-shot candidates that announced for President, but withdrew before the primaries began: Republicans, and Democrats. Conservatives had Rick Perry, Scott Walker, Bobby Jindal, George Pataki (all Governors,) and Lindsey Graham (Senator,) and Democrats had Lincoln Chafee (Governor,) Jim Webb, (Senator,) and Lawrence Lessig (Harvard professor.) Five to three, and Lessig never had a snowball’s chance in hell, so make that five to two, just among the left-field hail-mary mixed-sports-metaphor candidates.

Even if we can’t see them coming, they should still be showing up - so either they’re not out there to begin with, or they just can’t clear the hurdles. And my money’s on the latter. During the primaries we saw the same breathakingly elitist, high-handed hubris from both sides - even from (especially from) Ted Cruz, who was a neophyte and elected in the populist “Tea Party” surge... but Democrats, unlike Republicans, had actually rigged their party’s electoral apparatus so the establishment could enforce their clannish dictates. In Republican primaries, the votes are the votes, but Democrats use “superdelegates” in their party nominations - delegates that aren’t linked to any popular vote outcomes whatsoever. About 15% of the Democratic Convention’s delegates are “super-delegates,” which is a huge amount when you consider the usual margins in primary elections - to overcome them voting in lockstep against you, you’d need to defeat your opponent with huge landslides in a majority of states. And who do they give those seats to? The party’s old guard, of course, including such luminaries as Bill Clinton himself (naturally, he voted for Hillary.) And you have to understand that politics, like most things, function on the classic iceberg analogy; i.e. 90% of it is below the surface. Consider the culture amongst the Democratic party that’s required to support the creation and sustainment of this kind of system.

And also recall how urbanized the Democratic power base is - and then remember that the leftists have been gaining power in the Democratic party since 1969, and in the last decade (or longer, depending on whom you ask) their power has become dominant. Major urban centers like Detroit, Flint, Saginaw (MI,) Yongstown, Cleveland, Dayton, Toledo, Cincinnati (Ohio,) Pittsburg, PA, Charleston, WA, and even Milwaukee, WI - are all rust belt cities that have seen their blue-collar, working-class union Democrats trickle away from the Democratic party as the left, rather than liberals, gain ascendancy. That results in fewer electoral “incubators” for Democrats - now it’s pretty much just Chicago. And Chicago (where “machine politics” was invented,) is an example of why cities are important for Democrats; even if you’re running for Governor, not Mayor, the city is where you build your network of supporters (remember, Obama started as a “community organizer,” which is just a polite term for a rabble-rousing hell-raising instigator in the fashion similar to union strikes and street demonstrations.) Historically, unions and leftist/communist ideology shared lots of common ground (which is why unions were always attacked by conservatives as DEM GOL ’DERN BOLSHEVIKS), but now the leftists are concerned with “social justice,” which often holds forth - stridently - on the evils of privilege enjoyed by those fucking white males, who happen to constitute the majority of former and current union members. We’ve seen a precipitous shift in the left wing’s support base from union support in the northern Rust Belt to more hip, educated, and wealthy college towns that support a new demographic, and especially cities with new money - Silicon Valley and Seattle being the goddamned defining examples, as well as Madison, WI and Ann Arbor, MI. And not only do these places tend to not produce or elect the kind of candidates with broader appeal to a more rural, redder America, but I very much doubt they produce the kind of support structures - the political machines - that old-school union politics did. Remember, unions did - and still do - fucking kill people. The Mob was balls-deep in the unions and vise-versa, which is why the FBI still digs up a field here and there in the Detroit suburb cities looking for Jimmy Hoffa. These people worked different kinds of jobs, faced different kinds of enemies, and lived in a different kind of culture - they, and their culture, evolved out of the 30s, when big companies often hired mercenaries (excuse me, “private detectives”) to fucking machine-gun striker’s camps. They meant business, and they worked at it - and nowadays, the last remnants of those structures are only seen in real, effective evidence in Chicago, Illinois, which might explain why Democrats keep talking about how weak their state-level campaign infrastructure and support networks are.

Rural Democrats exist - hell, they used to define Democrats (”Dixiecrats”,) but that’s going back even further, to the 20s, the Dust Bowl, and Democratic patronage and defense of farmers, which culminated in FDR’s New Deal. You’ll still find those sentiments running strong in Iowa, but it’s more like “union politics for farmers.” And god knows they needed it - the railroad companies (which wined, dined and lobbied the fuck out of Congress) were often several miles of land on either side of their tracks, for free, when they built their lines across the sprawling West... and then the greedy bastards charged the farmers a fucking road toll to bring their grain to the fucking railhead to sell and ship it. You can still see the big community-crowdfunded silos built right at the edge of “railroad property” so people could “carpool” their grain shipments and split up the tolls a bit. But rural democrats are even rarer now, and it’s more of a lingering sentiment than a political reality, as anyone looking at the map can tell:

So the old union-politics incubators are either dead, dying or just plain depopulated and the rural democrats are either extinct, or too moderate to vote for the kinds of Social Justice Warrior candidates the coastal hipster kingdoms tend to produce.

“But planefag,” you say, “who says those hippie kingdoms can’t grassroots the fuck out of things? Just look at how much they’ve already done!” And that’s true - I could (and would) assay an argument that the nu-Democrats are more interested in virtue signalling and moralistic back-patting on Facebook than their gruff tuff blue-collar forbears were, but arguments that boil down to GIT OFFER MUH LAWN are pretty thin. The real problem is, the party old-guard is still ruled by the old guys with their roots in the union-era politics. There’s a reason the Democratic old-guard basically shut down Hillary’s primary challenge to Obama in 2008 - Obama came from Chicago, inside their system, whereas the Clintons had their own very strong power base they built a significant chunk of themselves... and besides, Bill was from Arkansas. They probably called him Farmer Bill the Centrist Shill. This violent culture clash was exemplified by the BernieBros - and Bernie himself, who’s a candidate that self-described Communist Michael Moore aptly labeled “an old socialist with neither a clue nor a comb.” He’s literally the Ron Paul of the left; a candidate that only dipshit millennials with more self-gratifying emotional zeal than common sense or practical concerns could love.

Not all is lost for the Democrats - a few of my friends, the ones I look to as an example of the people who could save the Democrats from themselves - told me flat-out that Hillary didn’t deserve to win. There’s a real grassroots movement to finally clean house; kind of a Democratic tea-party surge... but a lot of the people gunning for those offices are not liberals, but leftists. Young, hot and hungry ones.

Take note, liberals - your last, best chance to save your party is in front of you, and it’s about damn time you seized it with both hands.

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buttbuttgoat-blog · 6 years

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Only in America

Only in America is the average citizen too stupid to look at the suffering of others and not care, because for some reason seeing this crazy bullcrap happening to other people doesn't somehow make them care it might happen to them or someone they love. Just too stupid and cognitively dissonant to realize tomorrow it might be them with a diagnosis their insurance refuses to cover (because what are you gonna do about it?), getting shot by a deranged white kid with a God complex, dying of preventable diseases because you can't afford medication, going homeless and the entire nation forgetting you even exist, becoming unable to work and having no safety net so you starve to death... Do these people honestly think being "good, honest folk" means they can't possibly suffer cancer? Do they think their religion is good enough healthcare for them? And maybe think that should be the case for everyone else too? These things CAN happen to you or someone you love. You absolutely ARE in danger. If you understand that, good, now go do some public service convince a conservative to stop being a moron and start caring about this nation and its people - REALLY care, not "hur dur no kneely for flag time" patriotism. That isn't god damn patriotism. Patriotism is caring enough to want to make this a good nation, and how can a good nation be made up of a small group of satisfied, genuinely well-off folk when it's scattered among a hellish nightmare for millions of our homeless and dying? All because they'd rather throw their unearned millions to fund political parties that will refuse to fix our tax system than simply paying their fair damn share for getting to enjoy the comforts of their lifestyle off of the sweating back of the working America? And how can the thousands of the unfortunate working class Americans that tip-toe the line between survival and failing without a real safety net continue to support a system like this? How can so many vote conservative without considering the fact that future events completely outside of their control might end up with you or someone you care about finding yourself without a home, losing everything you have to natural disaster, a sudden murmur or a numbness of the side, or unfortunate timing with a kid who decided he wasn't too drunk to drive? These things can all happen to any one of us. That's the thing. In this nation, there's millions of unfortunate souls that have found themselves like that one day and have been living that hell ever since. Being a God-loving 'Murican won't save you from that. For those things, you need good social safety nets, good healthcare, sensible gun control laws to help prevent massacres - in essence, a modern government. Just listen to the experts, for just a moment, on any of those topics if you disagree. The REAL experts, not the hosts of Fox nor any of the bigots with a degree they bring on to get an opinion. Please, accept the modern sciences and census data and what they tell you. Stop living in your delusions just because they match your fears. I know it's hard, looking for those things is a primitive instinct that's just hard to overcome. Large corporations, billionaire preachers, the pharmaceutical industry, the NRA (and the industries/companies whose interests they represent), the tobacco industry, the coal industry, all the Walmarts and the like are exploiting this nation. They grew to huge wealth in one way or another and now want our government to keep making it as easy as possible to keep stealing from all of us. Fortunately for them, people are greedy so naturally a political party migrated their beliefs (over decades) to align with and represent all those "donors" that fund their election campaigns. Do you want to know something that would be funny, if it wasn't the dead honest truth? Somewhere along this pathway, someone actually had to sit down and think of how to take each of those ideas and put a positive spin on them in order to somehow convince the American public to support them. That's how "Clean" coal happened. That's how Trickle Down Economics happened. That's how Coca Cola getting away with health and marketing lawsuits happened, and, just like all the others, they pour money into our system to make sure the people make it legal to keep food labels as vague and misleading as possible stay legal, or to refuse to fund clean energy or enforce stricter environmental protection laws, etc.

But here's the thing (and I wish I could've said this earlier because I probably lost many people who need to read this by now, but oh well): I'm not saying these giant corporations and whatnot profiteering off of our system are evil. They're not. You know that, and I know that. But they are greedy. They realized they can buy political influence in order to literally change American society into one that would increase their profits. And they did this to its extremes. There isn't some cartoon villain pulling the strings, and I know we leftists love to compare Trump to one but he isn't a cartoon villain either; however, he IS a greedy human, just like the rest of us. That's why he takes the stances that he does. The new healthcare bill, his tax plan, and everything else can be explained by this. Those choices are funded by people who were ahead and realized they can get even further ahead by pushing beyond the boundaries of what our economic system was designed for and exploiting it. And the only reason this isn't presented as exploitation to you by the conservative media or anyone else who watches it is because they are paid by those exploiting us to hide that from you. Next time you hear a debate, please don't just break down the liberal's response but also ask yourself "Who benefits from the conservative option?" Ask yourself this about the investment any major economic force might have in the issue and then maybe even do some research about who is funding the conservative in this scenario (assuming this is a public figure); however, don't mistake not having funding for being trustworthy either, as most politicians will also match the party's position. Figure out who is donating to the party as well, and then see how those entities might benefit from that stance.

If you're a conservative and you made it this far, agree or disagree, I just wanted to congratulate you. You proved you aren't a snowflake and got through my entire rant without getting too triggered to keep going. ;) In which case, I just wanna throw in an afterthought for you: White privilege is the fact that white people are less likely to be faced with the troubles a person of color faces throughout their life, with the same frequency and magnitude. You're, in essence, less likely to be confronted with some of the misfortunes I mentioned, and thus probably also less likely to have had experienced a drive to fight for a nation that doesn't let good lives just fall apart by a stroke of bad luck. That's why so many underprivileged people fight for progressive leadership, although its easy to dismiss them as too lazy and simply ignore their suffering. Even if you aren't well off, there were probably situations in your life where you would've been worse off as a person of color, and a lot of people don't see that. But the fact people of color have it worse in America is confirmed by statistics. Economic well-being is tied to race, and yet there is no biological evidence for any intellectual difference between the races - leaving only socioeconomical reasons as valid explanations. Listen, you can agree or disagree, but at least have the courage to listen to the people living through this to tell you what it's like. Then go home and google how much we spend on the military, how much we aren't collecting in taxes where we should (and don't forget to check the billionaire preachers too), and how little it would cost us of our budget just to finally put together proper healthcare and other safety nets, and start to think for yourself instead of being told this is what a great America looks like.

And if you agree, leftist or rightist, reblog/share it and hopefully it will make a difference.

#America #USA #Politics #Trump #Leftist #Free #Socialism #Capitalism #Hashtag

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whiskey-nips · 3 years

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UNrest

Basically I am not gonna throw energy at the capital shit show, but I have pent up energy none the less, so here I spew. Fuck picking apart sides, I think the whole government should just be thrown away. Yes I could label myself to a certain way of political thinking, but I am also one who knows it’s not safe, practical or even necessary for me to speak on it. I don’t agree all the time, a lot of the time with other people who consider themselves the label that I use. Here’s some things that I do know about discussing politics... I believe that ambuigity has power. You are very privledged If I openly talk about my “political” beliefs, not everyone should or does have access to that part of me. I love the fact that a lot of my family and friends dont know where I stand and dont know my label. That way I am not immediently dismissed or judged, because I’ve chosen to that not everyone is entitled to know all of my beliefs and opinions. If you’re visably angry while talking to someone who doesnt hold the same beliefs as you, you are a discredit to your cause, you’re never going to change their mind, and you are giving that person more ammo to stereotype and hate you and your cause. Maybe you should take a step back and figure out if you are really trying to educate or help this person, or do you just want to be angry and reactive? have someone to blame? Do you want to feel smart while belittling someone to feel in power or control? Are you “pokin the bear” to avoid your own insecurities, fears, and subconicous issues? If you cant stand to be around people who have different political beliefs than you, can you claim to be a tolerant person? What does tolerance mean to you? Do you believe that people are mult-deminisional? That there are more to people, than who they vote for or what party they associate with? Do you believe that people who have different beliefs on politics than you dont deserve to be humanized? Do you believe yourself to be more superior? Are these people less than you, your party, or less than human? More importantly what does someone have to say, for you to be completely done with them? what are your boundaries? where is the line drawn?

There is always going to be this omnipresent “OTHER” who is different than you and demonized in a sense that this other wants to kill their neighbors, destroy for no reason, hurt you and your family. no matter which side. politics will always prey on fear of the the “OTHER”. I used to be afraid of the other, especially only interacting with them via the internet. In real life, they arent monsters. I started asking them questions on why they believed the things they did and from there I could dissect and humanize them. I realized that most of their beliefs come out of place of fear of change, the unknown, the different. Some were not used to or uncomfortable not being in control or in power and lashed out because they have insecurities and control issues. Some have truamas they cant admit and acknowledge and it shows itself in unrational thoughts and beliefs that make them feel comfortable in their bias. I mean who doesnt have trust issues? Lots of people have gone overboard with not acknowledging their trust issues and ended up believing weird shit because they desperately want anything but the norm to believe. Some people just want to fit in or are a product of their enviroment and aren’t interested in journeying outside their comfort zone. Regardless, I think it’s important to humanize people, if we want to coexist together. Maybe you dont want to coexist with these others. That’s fine but realize that if you do choose that route, you’re not any different than communes, religious organizations and compounds, rich gated neighborhoods, and various other secular communities that come together to seperate themselves and live in a bubble, in their own world, and are sheltered from what they want to be sheltered from. Not coexisting with people who are different from you in any way political or otherwise always comes out of a place of privledge. Shaming others who have to try and get along, coexist, tolerate for need of survival in a capitalistic hellscape is not helpful, productive and what does it accomplish? further alienation, ignorance and more fuel for both sides to be combative and fearful towards each other? probably... Maybe younger generations that get shit for “caring too much about feelings” focus on feelings and healthy ways to accept and love themselves, because they can see effects of not being introspective and practicing self care. the mental health issues plaging the generations ahead of them are so blatent.

Take for instance and into your consideration, this simple situation. you live on some beautiful acreage in a rural county and there’s a snow storm, your electricity goes out, your phone battery dies and the temperature is dropping, you are a liberal or whatever left oriented...you go to your neighbors house for help and you see they have a trump flag flying, you’re nervous, but need help. turns out its an older couple, man and his wife and they feed you, let you use their phone, let you stay the night. Are you going to leave and tell them how you really feel about trump and his supporters? Is this a once time occurance and you plan to never talk or look at them again? What do you do when someone you claim you dont want to tolerate or someone you cant stand helps you? On the other hand when people give into fear of each other this could be a scary situation. As some people on this side, when scared, immediately pull guns on people on their property. Ok flip the script What happens if a camoflague wearing bubba needs help because of this snow storm. He goes to his staunch liberal rich neighbors. Hopefully that neighbor lets them in and helps them out just as the conservative trumpers did, and he would have to face those same questions as the leftists would. but again, when people are fearful of each other this also could turn into a shitty situation, where those frightened liberals pretend they are not home, don’t answer the door and call the cops on the struggling bubba. How the hell are we supposed to help each other, claim we are community oriented, claim we are the bigger person, claim that we care about our country, claim we are pro life, claim we are caring, kind and tolerant, if we fail to help our own damn neighbor. Fear is something to overcome. We need to overcome this fear of eachother. The enemy is not your neighbor, ya’ll need each other a lot more than you need a shitshow of a government.

My moral compass is... I dont give a shit what you believe, would you help your neighbor in a snow storm if they were cold and powerless? If the answer is yes, then you’re ok in my book. The government as of lately is having trouble putting the fear of it’s self imposed supreme power in it’s citizens. (per the mass amount of protests and civil unrest, how laughable and ignorant the president was. despite worrying, I believe the mass majority as well as the rest of the world couldn’t take 45 seriously) the next best thing for the powers at be to do to save their butts, is make us afraid of each other. The government can continue to go about their business, fill their pockets, work 4 months of the year, live their privledged lifestyles while seperating themselves from the rest of society. All the while, we, regular ass people that count on, depend on, and are most affected by the decisions the people in government make, are too busy and distracted by blaming and hating eachother to uprise against career politicans and their disconnect and detatchment to anyone who doesnt own a yaht or multiple vaction homes in the french countryside.

#old zinester #winter cycle #writing #bullshit #unpopular politics

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